Again I was sensationally early. A few industry types eyed me with suspicion. I walked right up to them and introduced myself. That’s always the way to allay suspicion—just take the initiative. An intruder would try to hide. To make it clear that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be, just act like that’s exactly where you are supposed to be. It’s like dogs. Appear nervous and they are going to bite you on the taint. I spun a yarn to the few people there, telling them I was from the New York ICM office, my flight got screwed up, I was late for the screening and early to the party. A story they could all understand. And I used my real name. I always use my own name. It’s so easy to forget a fake one. They bought it. Why wouldn’t they? I was just like them. I was a cocky douche bag.
The party filled, and I took a few pictures and bullshitted with John Krasinski, but I couldn’t land the white whale. Brad was behind protection, who were themselves protected by protection. All I got from the evening was a dumb World War II dog-tag thing that everyone at the party received as a gift. You get used to rejection and failure in this game.
So my trip was over and I headed home. I waited in the United Airlines first-class lounge (of course) at LAX, and who should stride in but Mr. Brad Pitt himself. Still protected, but nothing like the levels of the evening before. Here was my chance to strike. I waited until he was standing next to something attainable (the juice bar, the bagel counter, that kind of shit) and walked right up. With a star of the magnitude of Brad, who has actual, neck-snapping bodyguards constantly around him, you have much less time to make an impression. Even in the first-class lounge.
“Brad, hi, Justin, we met last night. Sarah Silverman introduced us.”
I’d seen Brad, from a distance, sitting next to Sarah Silverman the previous evening. I could tell that his brain was rifling through all the prospective warning signs as his guards instinctively reached inside their jackets. (For what I have no idea. We were in an airport—I can’t imagine they were packing heat).
“Oh yeah, right,” he said, obviously unsure.
Then I remembered the dumb dog tag they’d given us from the party. It was still in my blazer’s pocket. I whipped it out.
“This fucking thing set off the alarm coming through security. Did you get one of these?”
I dangled it in front of him.
“Yeah, yeah.”
He recognized the dumb thing and knew I was legit. His heavies backed off. He smiled an actual smile rather than the smile he reserves for people who decide to hassle him. We chitchatted about the biz, and then I said, “Can I get a picture to send to Sarah?”
He obliged. I got my picture. It took some work, and some luck, but I got my picture. You take your chances; you think on your feet. You exploit every opportunity. You use the familiar. I had props; that helped.
That picture has been used everywhere. Everywhere.
Case Study: Kris Humphries
I hate jocks. I couldn’t give a shit about sports. The only reason I recognized Kris Humphries at the Bunker (a typically hideous Manhattan club usually filled with people like me) was because he had been banging a Kardashian. I forget which one. Tito?
They had been married. It was a disaster. The nuptials were annulled, and there was a lot of speculation about Kris and his intentions. What the fuck had happened? What would happen next? I saw my opportunity. Here are all the assets I had: there was Kris and his entourage, there was me and my camera, and there was a cute willowy blond waitress. I just put Jew and Jew together and came up with four.
I approached Kris—super nice and humble—had my picture taken with him, and all was peachy. But then, as the legend goes, I saw him hitting on the waitress and completely striking out. I went back up to him and gave him shit about being able to get the waitress’s digits and succeeding where he had failed. And maybe that’s exactly what I did. I saw him flounder, I strode up to the girl in question, and I made her laugh and got her number (which I instantly deleted).
And then somehow this whole sorry tale got leaked to the press and telegraphed around the world. “Kris Is over Kim.” “Kris Is on the Prowl Again.” “Kris Shoots and Comes Up Short.” “Kris Is Blocked at the Hoop by JRL.” (I honestly think the abundance of sports and basketball analogies helped keep this story in the press.) No one actually checked the story. Who is going to check? If they asked me, I’d say, “Sure, that’s how it went down.” Think they are going to look for the waitress? “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Bunker’s management would trot out, fueling the flames with some vague bullshit.
And Mr. Humphries? In a fabulous stroke of good fortune, his people chose to react. After some light goading (by me) on Twitter, they released a furious press statement denying the whole thing, claiming it never happened and how Kris was a wonderful human being and probably about to get the Nobel Prize for Non-Douchery. Excellent. Now I could retaliate and deny the denial: “Kris is just upset that I was able to make a three-second violation all over that waitress.” (Look, it’s just too good an analogy to pass up.) It got me a couple more days in the paper.
So what was the truth? Did Kris strike out with that hottie, and did I swoop in and seduce her right under his nose? Or did I just get my picture taken with Kris Humphries and then build a plausible story around it, a story I knew the press wouldn’t be able to resist? As Confucius so sagely said, “Who gives a shit?”
CHAPTER 5
JEWJETTING: I GIVE
A FLYING FUCK
Have you ever taken fucking Ambien?
This shit will kick your ass. I had absolutely no idea. I assumed it was as twee and lame as its name suggests, sounding, as it does, like a sexually ambiguous Disney fairy princess. But no, it’s a total monster. Which the common user doesn’t usually discover until they’ve taken a batch, at altitude, with alcohol.
Not that I need any excuses for appalling aviation behavior. There’s not too much shit I haven’t done at thirty-eight thousand feet, and as my career has progressed I’ve just become more flagrant and unacceptable. These days I’m fucking, sucking, and then Facebooking in some first-class suite on practically a daily basis. When this particular misdemeanor I’m about to recount took place, I hadn’t quite reached these heady heights yet. Though this little adventure certainly sent me on my way.
So I was flying to Frankfurt, I think. There were certainly a lot of Germans all around me. My kikey sense was tingling. And I was definitely in 1A. I mean, of course I was, but I am a storyteller and I’m trying to set the scene. Nothing untoward occurred initially. I got in, buttered up the staff, had a couple of Johnnie Walkers and hobnobbed with the locals. I unfurled my bed and changed into my jammies. I’d scored some Ambien from somewhere and so popped a couple with my scotch and settled back for a nap.
But I didn’t really fall asleep. Or maybe I did for a couple of minutes, but then I entered some kind of bizarre, euphoric, sleepwalking state over Nova Scotia where I had a sudden driving desire to fuck shit up. Feeling a little cotton mouthed, I decided my thirst needed to be quenched and that champagne was the only way to go. I looked around but couldn’t see any crew anywhere. So I set off in search of provisions.
Most of my privileged counterparts were snoring lightly as I headed to the galley and started to root around. I came across a few bottles that looked pretty tasty, frostily sitting there like some bubbling, icy slut. I decided to toast my good fortune and crack it open immediately. A few Germans stirred and snorted (in German) as the cork popped, but nobody tried to tackle me.
As I tipsily chugged my brut, I looked beyond my slumbering companions at the curtain in the distance.
“Just think,” I pondered to myself. Or possibly said out loud, due to my fucked-up-ness. “Here I am, sipping this delicious champagne, while just a few feet away, divided by that sliver of fabric, are poor unfortunates being force-fed swill while cramped painfully in understuffed seats.”
Or I think that’s what I thought. Quite possibly it was closer to “
Flarh, glarh, beent tad, quango” in my condition. As I’ve mentioned, I was pretty wasted.
This hideous economic disparity brought out my inner Bono, and I suddenly decided that I had to help the poor orphans trapped in steerage. I took the bottle and sashayed up the aisle, and dramatically emerged through the dividing curtain like I was in a high school production of Cabaret. Certainly, there were a few baffled Teutonic expressions as they took in this swaying, grinning, pajama-clad maniac holding champagne.
“Who wants a drink?” I asked, and then started to dispense the bottle to the grateful beneficiaries like some demented, soon-to-be-defrocked priest. Thankful Germans offered me a nervous “Danke” as I liberally sprayed expensive beverage in their direction.
By now, the lazy, lazy cabin crew, who had been loitering in the rear of the fuselage, realized something was going on. Something unusual. A carefully coiffured head appeared near the rear bathrooms and then quickly vanished. Then two heads reappeared and surveyed the scene. I could see the wheels spinning in their minds as they tried to conjure up the right reaction to this extraordinary situation. I think they soon realized that subtlety may be lost on a person such as myself and brute force was probably the best way to go. The woman with the most severe hairstyle was selected to approach me.
“Sir,” she began as I lightly moistened another German wrist with bubbly. “What are you doing?”
Given the circumstances, I felt this was a pretty fair question.
“The people,” I slurred. “These people. They have no champagne. I must give them champagne.”
I tried to scoot around her to continue my campaign. But she stood firm.
“No, sir,” she tried. “You cannot do this. You must return to your seat immediately.”
“But I must do this,” I added, then stated grandly, “You see, I am the Jewish Robin Hood.”
In my Ambien-addled mind, I heard a faint cheer rise from the cheap seats as I made my pronouncement. They were my serfs; I was their savior. In reality, I imagine most of them were quite scared. The stewardess looked appalled, as if I had taken the name of Robin Hood in vain.
“You are contravening a number of airline-security protocols.”
Her colleague behind her got into the tackle position: knees bent, arms outstretched to bear-hug me into submission if necessary.
“If you do not comply immediately, you will be restrained. Restrained.”
She repeated the word to make it completely clear that this was the worst possible thing that could happen in the air.
“Madam . . . ,” I began.
“I am the purser,” she corrected.
“Look. Yes. You are the purser. And I’m Robin Hood!” I semi-bellowed.
The cuff of my in-flight PJs was lightly gripped, and someone authoritatively tried to shift my momentum back toward the curtain.
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said. “I’m from first.”
This evocation of the class system seemed to stir something inside them. My cuff was dropped, and they now hovered around me, caught in some weird limbo. They knew they had to defuse this situation, but, as a premium-class passenger, I’d paid for the privilege of pretty much doing whatever the fuck I liked. Finger banging very much included.
“I’m getting the captain,” the purser mouthed.
There was an audible gasp from the passengers around me.
“Yeah!” I said. “Let’s get this party started!”
Before I could get the party started, the captain appeared. He seemed to flit between mild amusement and slight disdain.
“Sir,” he stated. “I am the captain.”
(I imagine all captains start every sentence with “I am the captain,” regardless of the situation—buying bagels, renting a car, getting a cheap blow job in a downtown Bangkok massage parlor.)
“I was informed of your behavior, and you must return to your seat immediately.”
“Can’t I come with you?” I mock pleaded. “You can take me back to the cockpit. I’d like it up there. I’d just sit quietly.”
“Passengers are never allowed to enter the cockpit,” the purser said, close to disgusted tears.
“It’s OK,” the captain said, taking over. “Listen, fella, you’re angling for a written warning, or to be met at the gate if you keep this up.”
“I’d love a written warning!” I said, delighted. “I’ve never had one of those before!”
“Great,” he said. “So, if we give you a written warning, you’ll go back to your seat and behave?”
“Sure.” Somehow his warped logic and my warped brain were in total alignment. I’d also started to get really, really sleepy. I’d been chugging the champagne backwash and started to feel quite nicely sedated.
A steward ahead of me took my hand while the purser held the back of my PJs like she was walking me down the aisle. Which she was, I guess. They dropped me in my seat and prepared to leave, trying to put the whole thing behind them.
“Wait!” I demanded. “Where’s my written warning?”
“Fine!”
The purser vanished, then returned with a hastily scribbled form that relayed my appalling behavior to the world.
“Any more outbursts,” she told me, “and you will be met at the gate by authorities and taken into custody.”
I started to think about whether I should double down and try for that. But while I was weighing this up in my mind, I drifted off into a deep, blissful sleep. I woke up as we were landing—refreshed, revived, and utterly despised by the entire onboard team.
As you may remember, if you are paying the adequate attention that I demand and deserve, my childhood dream was to become a pilot. Thank fuck I never realized that dream. Thank fuck for me and for the people living under my imagined flight path. Being a pilot is a one-mistake career. I tend to attract mistakes. I probably would have died on day one. In the flight simulator.
Or the best I could have hoped for would be to have been fired on day one, immediately after my first landing. I mean, can you imagine a sarcastic pilot? A snarky captain? That’s my only setting! There’s no way I could sit there with an intercom at my disposal and not try out some material. I would surely be led from the cockpit to a soundtrack of screams, tears, and baffled abuse.
Knowing I could never be the best pilot in the world, I decided to become the best passenger in the world. And this revelation reached me due to the deadly combination of pity and pussy. And, as inevitably occurs, some pity pussy. And pussy followed by pity. All combinations were represented. Let’s deal with the pity first.
Earlier we learned of my miraculous community service after a pretty virulent Super Bowl riot that I accidentally initiated. Through a variety of devious means, I’d managed to transfer this community service to some hippy-soaked project in rural Brazil. I was ecstatic that I’d turned my incarceration into vacation, but I wasn’t really looking forward to that eleven-hour flight in coach.
I’d not yet developed the techniques and maneuvers to guarantee an upgrade. I just knew I didn’t want to be sitting next to a fat chick with a mustache and an accent for half a day. So I was flying blind when I approached the desk and tried it on with the counter staff.
“Yeah, I think I’m due for an upgrade,” I tried.
The clicking of computer keys. “Uh . . . nope. I don’t think so, sir.”
“I applied a certificate. Really? Can you check again?”
More clicking. “No, I can’t see anything.”
“Let me talk to your duty manager.”
After a whispered telephone conversation, a man who was born to play a duty manager appeared. I took him aside.
“Listen, I really think there has been a mistake with my seat allocation, and I actually should be in 1A? Could you see if that’s possible?”
I’d been given a wad of cash by my family for the trip. Just in case I got kidnapped or contracted some exotic venereal disease. I knew I wouldn’t need that amount of money. I was venturing into the third world,
after all. So I handed this guy my ticket with $500 slipped inside.
He was silent for a while. Then he looked at me with pure disgust, tinged with disappointment. Like I’d just spit on his daughter’s pussy. He was truly appalled.
“At the very least, the very least, I’d lose my job,” he lamented. “Quite possibly we’d both be going to jail. What are you thinking? I would never degrade the good name of this airline or the responsibility bestowed upon me . . .”
On and on he went. Eventually he ran out of steam, and I talked to him mano a mano.
“Calm down. I’m not the first guy to try and bribe his way into an upgrade. You don’t need to get medieval. I tried and fucked up; you can save the sermon.”
I think he grasped that he may have gone overboard to a certain degree, and eventually he started talking to me like a human being and gave me his card. Which I considered a valuable prop.
With that utter failure behind me, I checked in and joined the cattle by the gate. But I still didn’t want to sit in fucking coach. So I pieced together a pretty half-assed plan. Once on board, I stowed my stuff above a seat in business class (I’d felt it would be pushing it to try for first), then headed into the bathroom. I stayed in there for a good twenty minutes, releasing the occasional sound of gastric exertion whenever anyone checked on me. After the plane doors had been closed and locked, I appeared and took an empty seat in business.
Predeparture drinks were served, smiles were offered, and the usual procedures began. Then a few worried expressions appeared. A hushed conversation amongst the cabin crew was followed by a prolonged period of head counting. Staff walked up and down the plane, trying to calculate the bodies in seats, with puzzled looks on their faces. Eventually an announcement was made.
“Sorry about this slight delay, folks. Just have a slight problem with the passenger manifest. We’ll get this sorted out, and we’ll be on our way in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?: Confessions of a First-Class Asshole Page 8